Vera Drake

As a piece of cinematography Vera Drake is wonderful, I could almost smell the boiled cabbage and envisage the brown and mustard cardigans of my early years. However, as an accurate social commentary the film is akin to portraying Marie Stopes as Florence Nightingale or Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair as Ghandi. Like so many before him, Mike Leigh attempts to champion the cause of the 'poor working class' and by doing so shows quite clearly that his pedigree hails not from that stable.

Jim Dowson

Humane abortion?

VERA DRAKE
Cert. 12A
Director: Mike Leigh

Vera Drake is quite a remarkable film. Mike Leigh has exquisitely captured the 'Old Britain': much of the film's backdrop is shrouded in the once so familiar smog and greyness that seemed to characterise Britain pre mid-1970s.

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